Why even have levels?

As you use skills (ie: fight, pick locks, lift weights)
you gradually increase your stats which are stored as
floating point. Then at any given time, ALL your stats
are modified by your current health. So if you have 100%
health, you move at 100% of your speed, can carry 100% of your
max weight, can do 100% of your able damage. This means normaly
invincible high level players *could* be defeated through
swarming.

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Erick: i think that all this talking and such is paining my head to astounding annoyance
Disco Love For Everyone

I think you are describing a system that exist in *some* paper RPG. Basically, when your health get low, you start to suffer penalties. If you are wounded, your attributes are lowered accordingly. Since tests are all done absed on attributes, those modifications are VERY annoying, but "realistic" in a way. This makes you much MUCH more careful about going into a fight, as you couldn''t run away if your legs are damaged for instance.

e.g. a wound to the head disturb all intellectual actions and your ability to move around (confused). a wound to the arms would decrease your manual abilities, wounds at the legs slow you down, etc.

Of course this implies a good combat system, and damage location.

One thing I am really interested in :
If we go with the idea of permanent death, we should make it so that the players are more vulnerable, without making them always encounter potentially lethal situations (fights). So the idea is to take the health of the characters more seriously by introducing a bit more stuff, like hunger, thirst, deceases, and other annoying things that would make the players think more heavily about fragility, and hopefully makle them realise that if drinking from this water in a marsh can make you die from malaria, then certainly fighting a horde of goblins is NOT a good idea neither...
of course, this would also mean that health management should be a bit deeper than "gimme the extra healing potion" !

youpla :-P

I can see it now: Gondorolo the Mighty Barbarian king slain
by the flu (he should have worn more than just wooly jocks).

But seriously, its a good idea. Make the user realize he can''t
afford to go on rampages, but if niggling details like that are
to taxing on the player, it stops being fun.

ie: make them eat once every hour or so, not every 10 min.

R.I.P. MeekRat the Thief. Killed by Scurvy (he forgot to eat
fruit)

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Erick: i think that all this talking and such is paining my head to astounding annoyance
Disco Love For Everyone

In my current game, I have it so that damage is per body part. And if the player or NPCs' legs are damaged the movement rate is slower. I'll probably have the other body parts affected also.

Edited by - Nazrix on August 30, 2000 5:20:42 PM